


When the Light Comes In

by Northern_Star



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Star/pseuds/Northern_Star
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's probably not a smart thing to do, after all he's been pointedly avoiding Ryan's room for the entire road trip, convincing himself that time away would help get over this stupid crush he has, but between Ryan and Nail, there's really no question which one Justin would rather be "stuck with" for the evening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Light Comes In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> This was meant as a birthday present for the lovely silverspotted; it's a couple of months late, though. #fail  
> I'm sorry it took me so long to write this for you, and I'm sorry this isn't exactly the "making out in the kitchen" story you had asked for, but I hope you'll enjoy this anyway! <3
> 
> With thanks to the equally lovely Kayim for having a look and making sure I hadn't screwed anything up too bad. ;)
> 
> Title is from lyrics to a Tom Cochrane song, because I apparently miss the 90s for some reason.
> 
> The story assumes a few things that are likely to be wrong -- some degree of suspended disbelief might be required.

It's been a long road-trip. A _very_ long road-trip. And while Justin was originally looking forward these away games, he's really had about all he can take of life on the road by now. It's not that he's homesick — Edmonton isn't technically home, anyway — or that playing away games is especially hard, although they _have_ lost most of them. He's a hockey player, and that's all part of the job description; he's adjusted to that part of it a long time ago. No, the thing is that rookies don't get their own rooms on the road, and while Nail is a pretty cool guy, he's also very, _very_ intense, and it's starting to get on Justin's nerves a bit. In fact, it's right up there on Justin's list of "worst living arrangements ever," just behind sharing an apartment with someone on whom you have a completely unrequited crush...

Tonight is their last "off" night on the road; tomorrow they're playing the Avs, then after the game, back to Edmonton they go. A bunch of the guys have gone out to dinner together, but Justin really needs some peace and quiet, so he's opted to stay behind and order room service instead. It's pointless though, because Nail has decided to stay behind as well, claiming that having dinner all alone was just too sad a thing to do and that he couldn't possibly abandon his roommate to such a fate — not quite in so many words, of course.

So, Justin sits on his bed, munching on the last of the fries he probably shouldn't have ordered but felt he deserved to have tonight. The TV is on, but he's using it mostly as a means to tune out the loud, enthusiastic phone conversation Nail is having — in Russian, as usual. Nail never bothers to lower his voice, presumably since he knows Justin doesn't understand a blessed word of Russian, and hence there's no point in trying to make sure he won't overhear anything private.

Nail eventually hangs up and tosses his cellphone on the nightstand. Dropping heavily on his bed, he asks, "Wanna play Halo?" 

Justin holds back a sigh. No, he really doesn't want to play Halo right now... He would have liked to have been able to finish this book he'd started reading, except that's not very likely to happen tonight. On the other hand, he really doesn't want to have to sit here and listen to all the reasons why Halo is such an awesome, _awesome!_ game, so against his better judgement, Justin smiles and says, "Sure, why not."

He barely has time to regret his decision at all though, because the moment the console is powered on and the game starts loading, Nail's cellphone starts ringing again. He picks up, of course — there was absolutely no doubt about that — and starts chattering away immediately.

"Start mission," Nail tells Justin, briefly breaking away from his phone conversation. "I join really soon, okay?"

Justin knows right away that he's been handed the gift of a way out, so he wastes absolutely no time and rolls off his bed, shoving his feet into his shoes. "I'm going to go for a walk, actually," he says, walking over to the closet to grab his jacket. He doesn't wait for a response before adding, "I'll be back in a little while," and heads out of the room.

He follows the hallway to the elevator doors, then presses the arrow-down button and waits. But while he's standing there, waiting for his ride down to the lobby and liberty, Justin changes his mind. He's not familiar enough with downtown Denver to have any sort of idea where he could go. Sure, there's a GPS and a map on his cellphone, but still... Besides, he doesn't want to spend the next half hour or so walking aimlessly around a foreign city; what he wanted to do this evening was put his feet up and _relax_.

Rolling his eyes at himself, Justin turns around and heads away from the elevator. It dings a moment later, and he looks over his shoulder at the opening doors, but he doesn't go back. He doesn't go back to his room either, walking right past it, and past the next six doors down the hall. He stops in front of the very last door at the end, then takes a deep breath and knocks. It's probably not a smart thing to do, after all he's been pointedly avoiding Ryan's room for the entire road trip, convincing himself that time away would help get over this stupid crush he has, but between Ryan and Nail, there's really no question which one Justin would rather be "stuck with" for the evening.

There's no answer, so Justin knocks again a few moments later. "Hey, Nuge?" he calls, his face inches away from the door, "It's Justin. You there?"

And just like that, Justin hears noise on the other side of the door. It flies open a moment later.

"Hey, what's up?" Ryan asks, squinting at his unexpected guest. His hair looks flattened on the left side of his head, like maybe he was sleeping, and Justin instantly feels awful and stupid.

"Oh, shit, did I just wake you?"

"Nah, I was watching a movie. Did you need anything?"

Justin shrugs a bit, feeling embarrassed. "A place to hide, like for about an hour?" he says tentatively. 

Ryan laughs. "Roomie giving you a hard time?" He moves out of the way and motions for Justin to come in. 

"Thanks, man," says Justin, smiling gratefully. "I like Nail, I really do, it's just that he's a little bit, well...you know..."

"Yeah, he really is," Ryan replies, still laughing a little. 

"So, uh, what were you watching?" The movie is paused on an image of some buildings that Justin can't identify well enough to figure out what this could possibly be from.

"Oh, uh..." Ryan clears his throat, before admitting that he's been watching The Hangover. For what Justin can only imagine is the thousandth time. "It was free," Ryan says in his own defense, "And besides it's almost over, so let's just watch something else, okay?"

"Sure," says Justin as he drapes his jacket over the back of the lone chair in the room. "Whatever you want to see is fine." 

While Ryan starts scrolling through the list of movies he can order, Justin toes his shoes off and comes to sit on the side of the bed that still has its pillow tucked under the comforter.

"How about Avengers?"

Justin shrugs. "Yeah, okay, whatever you feel like." They've seen this one before as well, but he doesn't really care; watching a movie with Ryan sounds like a much better way to spend an evening than getting his butt kicked at Halo by his crazily hyper Russian roommate... Then again, watching a movie with Ryan sounds like a great way to spend _any_ evening, regardless of what else Justin could possibly be doing instead. Apparently, this road trip hasn't done much to erase these feelings after all.

Ryan hits the play button on the remote, then stretches out on his side of the bed and pummels his pillow for a while. Justin eyes him curiously, chuckling.

"What?" Ryan asks, in a falsely innocent tone before finally laying down his head on his pillow with a contented sigh.

Justin only chuckles more.

"Stop laughing at me!"

"I'm not laughing _at you_ ," Justin protests, "I'm laughing _with you_." He's laughing even harder now of course.

Ryan smacks him on the arm. "Oh, shut up and watch the movie, you non!"

Justin has to bite the insides of his mouth to keep from laughing more. Every time he glances over, Ryan rolls his eyes at him, and Justin smiles back lopsidedly, snorting despite himself. He doesn't fully manage to regain his composure until after Loki shows up for the first time, five minutes into the movie. He's mostly quiet after then, chuckling once in a while, though the jokes aren't quite as funny as they were the first time he saw them.

"I missed this," says Ryan, about halfway through the film.

"Oh, uh," Justin replies, a little absently, "Thor was just saying that—"

"No, no," Ryan cuts in, amused. "I mean I missed _this_..." He makes a vague gesture before explaining, "Watching movies together, like we used to do when we were in OKC. You know? I've barely seen you at all outside the locker room this entire road trip."

"Oh... uh, yeah," Justin sort of stammers as a response. Then as he thinks about it, he adds, "It _is_ kind of like we're back in the AHL again, isn't it?"

"Yeah," says Ryan in what sounds like a wistful sigh. "I miss it sometimes..."

Justin looks over to Ryan who smiles at him. 

It's kind of ridiculous how much this feels like the AHL all over again. Sitting side by side on a hotel room bed somewhere, watching a movie they've already seen before so it doesn't matter if they fall asleep in front of it or not. The only thing missing is Hallsy and Ebs, tangled together on the other bed and paying more attention to one another than to anything else in the room, and Justin could totally pretend they're still Barons and not yet Oilers. While he's at it, he'd like to pretend that Ryan is interested in him, but that's also not the case at all.

Embarrassed to realize he's staring at his bedmate, Justin finally looks away, hoping the heat he feels rising on his cheeks doesn't actually show. He tries very hard to concentrate on the movie after then rather than all the what-ifs he likes to daydream about.

The movie ends and credits start rolling. "That was fun," Justin says. Looking over, he notices that Ryan has his eyes closed and is most probably asleep. "Oh..." he whispers as he starts putting his shoes back on. "I should probably go, I guess..."

"You don't have to," Ryan tells him in a sleepy voice, eyes just barely opened.

"I thought you were sleeping?"

Ryan rubs at his eyes as he slowly sits up. "Seriously, you don't have to go. I've missed hanging out with you." 

"Dude, you were totally sleeping just now."

"Just resting my eyes," Ryan argues, weakly at best.

"Sure..." Shaking his head, Justin goes to pick up his jacket. "Anyway, I should get back to my room before Yak freaks out and thinks I've been kidnapped."

"Just call him then, and tell him you're staying here tonight," Ryan suggests. He's gotten up and is blocking Justin's path out of the room.

Justin blinks in confusion. He must have misunderstood, because Ryan couldn't have meant what Justin thinks he heard. Of course not. "If I tell him anything of the sort, he'll start spreading all sorts of rumors," he finally manages to reply. "You know what kind, too."

There's a short pause, during which Ryan seems caught in an internal debate with himself. He eventually shrugs, and somewhat hesitantly asks, "Would that really be so bad?"

And for a second there, Justin wonders if he's not dreaming, because this can't be reality, right? Except it totally hurts when he pinches himself, so he guesses this means it's definitely not a dream he's having. And Ryan is looking at him like he's waiting for an answer, so Justin shrugs and tells him what he thinks Ryan wants to hear, "It's not like anyone would believe him anyway." 

Except apparently it's _not_ what Ryan wants to hear because his shoulders slump and he sighs heavily. "Right, of course not," he mumbles.

"Wait, what...?" Justin stutters, now completely and utterly lost. "You're saying—? You want me to... _stay_?" He stops himself just short of adding "but there's only one bed," because it's a) a dumb comment to make, and b) not actually a bad thing by any means imaginable.

"Never mind," says Ryan, shaking his head and looking halfway between embarrassed and dejected. "It doesn't matter. I guess I was wrong. You should go back to your room before Nail calls 911 and files a missing person's report..." Head bowed down, he starts to move away.

"No, Ryan, wait," Justin says, grabbing Ryan's wrist before he's out of reach. With his other hand, Justin fishes his phone out of his pocket and quickly dials a number. He waits for an answer, looking at Ryan pleadingly.

At the third ring, Justin starts to worry there's not going to be answer, especially since Ryan now looks like his patience is running really short and he's pulling back on his arm, willing Justin to let go of him.

Then suddenly there's a "Ya?" at the other end and Justin releases the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Hey, it's Schultzy," he says in a real hurry, almost as if his life depended on it. His sex life might, at any rate... "Look, I just wanted to tell you not to wait up for me or anything. I'm staying over at a friend's. Possibly until morning..."

"Ooooh," says Nail, all mirth and admiration, "You have sex-friend in Denver?"

Justin rolls his eyes. "Bye, Yak," he says, avoiding the question entirely. He ignores Nail's enthusiastic babbling at the other end of the line, cutting him off with a decisive, "I said _bye_ , Yak," then hangs up the phone and shoves it back into his pocket before looking up at Ryan. Justin is so nervous, he can almost feel the knots forming in his stomach.

"Does that mean you're staying, then?" Ryan asks in a soft voice, a lopsided smile gracing his lips.

All of Justin's doubts, all the tension, slowly melts away at that smile. He tugs on Ryan's arm, the one he's hasn't let go of, and pulls him closer. "Oh, god, Ryan," he whispers, awkwardly leaning in, pressing their lips together. And for a second he worries — maybe it's too fast, maybe he's doing it wrong, maybe... — but as soon as Ryan responds and start kissing back, Justin's insides start turning into jelly.

It's nothing like he'd expected, because...well, he's never actually expected Ryan would kiss him — not in this lifetime anyway. It was the stuff of daydreams before; it was nowhere near the realm of possibility. And yet it is. Not only that, but for all its awkwardness, it's so much better than any of the ones he's dreamed up since OKC. It's better because it isn't make-believe; it's Ryan...and it's _real_.

Justin is all but gasping for breath when he pulls away. "Why—?" he starts to ask, panting, "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I—" Ryan begins, but stops, frowning. "I don't know? I wasn't sure before." He shakes his head abruptly, as if to explain his words came out all wrong. "I mean, I wasn't sure if you...well, you know? I was sure about me, but..." He shrugs. "I've missed you a lot on this road trip, and I guess I figured if I didn't at least _try_ something, I'd end up regretting it eventually, and, well...now seemed like a good time for that. Besides, why didn't _you_ ever say anything?"

"Because I'm a moron?" Justin replies in a self-deprecating way. 

"It's okay, I kind of like you anyway..."

Justin smiles, because Ryan is smiling at him, and that, right now, is one of the greatest things ever. And so what if Justin is kind of a clueless idiot — at least, he can be sometimes — because it doesn't really matter now, does it? He can't go back and change the past to make up for lost time, but he can sure as hell enjoy the present. 

And as he closes the distance between himself and Ryan again, Justin is pretty sure he'll be enjoying the near future quite a bit, too.

 

> End.


End file.
